“Within its moss-covered walls, hoary with the scars of centuries, are contained a priceless collection of objects of high historic value, beautiful shrines, and age-defying temples – things which the tourist in his search for the strangely new, strangely old, will discover in no other part of the world”. - Daniel O’Connell, 1908

This is a quote from Manila, The Pearl of the Orient, a tourist guide book published i

The Tiong Bahru Estate which was the first planned housing estate in Singapore, was conserved in 2003 by the URA. Source: Author’s own.

INTRODUCTION

Singapore is a city-state that has progressed from a small port to be a highly developed and competitive city that is widely recognised in the global economy. To stand in this position today within a short amount of time meant that rapid transformation needed to occur at a monumental scale. A notable example of this transformation is the revitalis

The industrialisation of urban landscapes have damaged the identities of many towns and cities, while the desire of many residents to move to larger cities or suburbs has caused urban shrinkage in many smaller urban centres (Matta & Caballero, 2016). In a move to counteract such trends, leaders of small and medium sized towns pledged to improve and maintain a high quality of lif

One of many Eric Zacharevic murals in Penang. Photo Source: Arrestedmotion.com

The urbanisation of metropolitan areas and the character of cities have taken a new dimension in recent years. There is an increasing focus for local residents to have an active role in developing the cities of the world. Such trend is seen as an important step in promoting sustainable practices and improving planning policies in urban areas (Yuen, 2009). With the emergence of the “Maker Movement” from DIY (Do-It-You

“A work of art does not wholly disappear with its physical dissolution. It persists as long as there are people to remember it; people to whom it is of significance even as a memory or as a concept”.

_ Leo Schmidt

Introduction
The Wolf House, a modernist villa designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was located in Guben (Today’s Gubin) in Poland which was built in 1926, long before the Second World War. Sadly what remains today from the modern

Trees are the tall, quiet guardians of our human narrative. They spend their entire lives breathing for the planet, supporting vast ecosystems, all while providing key services in the form of food, shelter, and medicine. Their resilient boughs both lift the sky and our spirits as well. Their moss aged grandeur stands testament to the shifting times, so much so, that imagining a world without trees is like imagining a world without life.

Berlin is said to be a city of ghosts (Ladd, 1997). It has staged the most horrific political regime of the 20th century, which has left traces in the landscape. These traces remain even if the sites of terror have being torn down, reused as something completely different or memorialised in the city. This article will analyse traces of commemoration in urban spaces in Berlin for the victims of the National Socialist (Nazi) regime from 1933 to 1945. It will explore how these victims are remembere

HOW DO WE PROFILE A CAPRICIOUS PROFESSION

It is understood that if you organise a ‘gaggle’ of designers or planners to solve a mutual task, the number of alternative outcomes would be directly proportional to the number of participants – that is, if it was initially agreed amongst the ‘gaggle’ that there were no restrictions on alternative options. This does not mean that the participants would disagree on the alternative outcomes and that having multiple answers to a design problem is an issu

Sustainable development in the African continent and more specifically in Nigeria, has always been threatened by climate change impacts. These impacts will bring about ecosystem degradation and a disruption of the socio economic processes in the country. Lagos is a state in Nigeria which is a world accepted megacity due to its huge population. However, the coastal areas in the state are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as increased or heavy rainfall season which will trigger off

In recent decades, landscape has become a central topic in the debate of territory management. The approach to landscape takes necessary multidisciplinary knowledge, which has never been sufficiently clear, trying to respond to that set of actions to ensure the government and to guide and harmonize its variations, caused by social development, economic and environmental processes.

To investigate landscape, therefore, it is possible to define both theoretically and through existing projects, a nu

A close up photo of the beautifully crafted Singapore Botanic Gardens’ Tanglin Gate. Photo by Gabriel Caballero.

Last 4 July 2015, during the 39th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Bonn, Germany, the Singapore Botanic Gardens was successfully inscribed in the prestigious World Heritage List. It was a successful culmination point of three years of preparation work from different government agencies, specialist consultants and heritage conservation groups in Singapore that established the site’s ‘Outstanding Universal Value’. The World Heritage inscription serves as a timely reminder to Singapore that is celebrating 50 years of nationhood, that the remembrance of the past is part of its celebration of the future, where heritage sites and new developments can harmoniously co-exist side by side, as part of the vision of having a City in a Garden.

The Whitney Museum of American Art opened May 1 2015. It has one of the best green infrastructure addresses: being at the southern end of the High Line, and just south of the contemporary gallery hub in Manhattan, Chelsea, home for high end as well as highbrow contemporary art galleries, not the least being Dia Foundation.
Renzo Piano Building Studio was the architect, producing a building form that presents asheer wall to the Hudson, with expansive views of the Hudson, and lower west side Manha

Insects and other invertebrates account for over 90% of all living species, building the basis for most ecosystems. In fact, they often dominate their landscapes through both sheer number and volume, providing many key services, either directly or obliquely, as pollinators, recyclers, pest control and as food for a host of animals.

Keeping this in mind, the responsibilities of the modern design practitioner are more challenging than ever before. Due to the effects of climate change, habitat loss

The grasslands at the base of Mts. Iglit-Baco has been shaped by centuries of human activity and tamaraw (native buffalo) grazing. Copyright: Bojer Capati.

The world contains a vast variety of landscapes that represent a myriad of regions, cultures, and different approaches of man’s adaptation to the natural world. Since 1992, these particular landscapes were termed as ‘cultural landscapes’, recognised by UNESCO to be the combined works of nature and man. These places give a glimpse of the ev

Our member association, the Landscape Institute (LI) – the UK professional body for landscape architecture, in a collocation with other partners, created a very interesting animation that explains how important the role of landscape architects is. The animation shows how the liveability of our cities is contingent on all those responsible for designing and managing our cities working with the landscape rather than against it.